The Philadelphia Textile Scholastic Classic was founded in 1981 by coach Joe Ryan and continued by Coach Fred Rosenfeld of Philadelphia Textile & Science. At it's peak during it's 10 year reign, the race grew to one of the biggest high school cross country races on the east and drew over 60 teams and 700 athletes to Belmont Plateau in late September each year.

With the end of the Philadelphia Textile Classic in 1990 (due to dc of XC at Phila Textile), Coach Ed Ulmer (Archbishop Ryan) vision was to continue the weekend of high quality high school cross country at Belmont Plateau and created the Briarwood Invitational. ("Briarwood" was used to help promote Coach Rosenfeld's Briarwood Running Camp). Coach Ulmer's son, Ed, designed the logo, with the slogan "I Conquered Parachute Hill" for the back of the race T shirts. Briarwood Invitational became one of the biggest high school races on the East Coast drawing over 1,000 athletes from Pa, NY, NJ, Virginia, MD, Ohio, to Belmont Plateau Park. Many of the top runners on the east coast competed each year in mid September in this meet. The HS Belmont Plateau Course record was often set in this meet.

The race was organized by the parents from Archbishop Ryan /Central HS. The race has a Championship Div (top ranked teams), Div 1 and Div 2 divisions as well as freshmen races. Coach Ed Ulmer managed the race until his retirement in 2016. The long tradition of Briarwood continues under the race management of Coach Greg Bilecki of La Salle. Below is a list of the Championship division top teams and individuals over the years. Since the early years of the races saw some of the best times coming from the "smaller race" division, the list includes both division championship teams and individuals. The Briarwood race continues with La Salle HS acting as host school for the meet.